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Main Authors: Hickey, Daniel, Schmitz, Matheus, Fessler, Daniel, Smaldino, Paul, Muric, Goran, Burghardt, Keith
Format: Preprint
Published: 2023
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2304.04129
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author Hickey, Daniel
Schmitz, Matheus
Fessler, Daniel
Smaldino, Paul
Muric, Goran
Burghardt, Keith
author_facet Hickey, Daniel
Schmitz, Matheus
Fessler, Daniel
Smaldino, Paul
Muric, Goran
Burghardt, Keith
contents On October 27th, 2022, Elon Musk purchased Twitter, becoming its new CEO and firing many top executives in the process. Musk listed fewer restrictions on content moderation and removal of spam bots among his goals for the platform. Given findings of prior research on moderation and hate speech in online communities, the promise of less strict content moderation poses the concern that hate will rise on Twitter. We examine the levels of hate speech and prevalence of bots before and after Musk's acquisition of the platform. We find that hate speech rose dramatically upon Musk purchasing Twitter and the prevalence of most types of bots increased, while the prevalence of astroturf bots decreased.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2304_04129
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Auditing Elon Musk's Impact on Hate Speech and Bots
Hickey, Daniel
Schmitz, Matheus
Fessler, Daniel
Smaldino, Paul
Muric, Goran
Burghardt, Keith
Social and Information Networks
On October 27th, 2022, Elon Musk purchased Twitter, becoming its new CEO and firing many top executives in the process. Musk listed fewer restrictions on content moderation and removal of spam bots among his goals for the platform. Given findings of prior research on moderation and hate speech in online communities, the promise of less strict content moderation poses the concern that hate will rise on Twitter. We examine the levels of hate speech and prevalence of bots before and after Musk's acquisition of the platform. We find that hate speech rose dramatically upon Musk purchasing Twitter and the prevalence of most types of bots increased, while the prevalence of astroturf bots decreased.
title Auditing Elon Musk's Impact on Hate Speech and Bots
topic Social and Information Networks
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2304.04129